Reflective Practice Assignment: End Of Life Care

Improved Essays
Reflective Practice Assignment
The purpose of life support is to help sustain organ function until the body is capable to regain the function itself. When a loved one becomes ill and needs lifesaving medical treatment, families do their best to make sure adequate care is received. Ethical issues can cause dilemmas for doctors, nurses, and the family. It is the medical staff’s responsibility to make sure the patient and family understands the end of life process. During the end of life process the doctors and nurses must insure the patient is comfortable and has limited pain. Extremis is a twenty-four minute documentary, where two families allow viewers to share in their experience in the end of life care of their loved ones. Dr. Zitter appears in this documentary as the critical and palliative care specialist at Oakland Hospital where she focus on the psychological, emotional and spiritual needs of patients and families.
Ethical Dilemma
One big dilemma was the patient’s inability to communicate and give consent while on life support. Dr. Zitter expressed to the families that “ were all going to die….and it’s good to
…show more content…
Ethical issues arise daily and I must be confident to make appropriate decisions and not allow my own opinion to get in the way of providing adequate nursing care. It is not my job to judge or push my beliefs on patients. I understand that we all come from many different experiences, cultures, religions, and racial backgrounds that have helped use develop our morals and beliefs. I am to educate and advocate for my patient even if I don’t agree with their medical decisions. If there are ethical or moral beliefs that will affect me, I must make sure to inform my supervisor. I believe my true role as a professional nurse is to advocate, give holistic patient centered care and help each patient maintain a better quality of

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    End of Life Care also referred to as Hospice or Palliative care is focused on making the patient as comfortable as possible by providing an array of services for the patient. In Ella’s case the social worker must use a framework objected towards Ella’s illness and pain. At the end of life much attention is given to the physical, psychosocial, emotional, and spiritual needs of the patient. Additionally, the Social Worker must create an agenda designed to deliver care to the family as…

    • 812 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “Being Mortal” produced by Thomas Jennings was originally aired on February 10, 2015. The 54:11 minute episode deals with the experience of a doctor and patient as a patient nears the end of their life. Many point of views helped to express the difficulty a doctor and patient has when the patient is dying. All people are affected by dying in some way. This documentary deals with the process that doctors go through when they are dealing with patients who have less and less options for treatment as their lives come to a close.…

    • 1053 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Hello, Tera~~ Good post this week. End-of-life care interventions must report arrangement and strategy alterations, as well as developments in specific nurse's communication expertise regarding end-of-life conversations. The hospice training and development and diffusion of efforts for the general public and experts in palliative care will affect the growth and acceptance of end-of-life conversations. Also continue to participate in the skills and experience to enhance the level of comfort and the opportunity to foster dialogue and end of life, as well as individual experts, it is important for them to work within the organization. These efforts will not only nurses but also the most important for the doctor (Giovanni, 2012).…

    • 181 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The number of patients who were served by hospice has steadily increased over the past several years. (“Facts”) V. AMA Policy on End-of-Life Care (“AMA”) A. Opinion E-2.037 Medical Futility in End-of-Life Care When further intervention to prolong the life of a patient becomes futile, physicians have an obligation to shift the intent of care toward comfort and closure. B. Opinion E-2.035 Futile Care Physicians are not ethically obligated to deliver care that, in their best professional judgment, will not have a reasonable chance of benefiting their patients. VI.…

    • 534 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    End Of Life Care Essay

    • 704 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Khadijeh Hamad Nursing 393 Writing assignment 5 1.) The three elements that assist healthcare professionals in addressing end of life discussions are critical to a family 's decision making capacity. These include the need for increased education of the healthcare system to better understand the dying process, the communication between family and healthcare staff on the prognosis of their loved ones, and lastly a need for up-to date advance directives. 2.)In this 2008 study, families who had a lost a member in the previous three to eight years were interviewed to recount and record their experiences and emotions.…

    • 704 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Palliative Care Model

    • 1316 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The realization that illnesses can be cumbersome to contain especially in the event that the patient is approaching the end of their lives is an issue that cannot be understated. In such situations, therefore, there is the need to have in place strategies that will satisfactorily address the problems associated with such life-limiting sickness (Palliative care NSW, 2012). In this direction, therefore, one of the most appropriate ways through which these illnesses can be solved is by employing the palliative care in addressing the problems that such patients and their families may be going through. As such, there is the need to have a better understanding of palliative care and the role that it plays in ensuring that the healthcare wants…

    • 1316 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    End of life care is perhaps one of the most sensitive issues in healthcare. It presents with a myriad of elements that must be considered, if care is to be provided in an ethical manner. Essentially, there are the wishes of the patient to take into account, the opinions of the family members of said patient, the legal and medical ramifications of decisions taken, and of course, to a large extent, the religious views on the topic. Of significance, is the delicate decision of removing artificial respiration, nutrition and hydration, and the personal decision of some patients to opt for euthanasia…

    • 1708 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Decent Essays

    End Of Life Care Essay

    • 470 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Subject of Clinical Inquiry: Advanced Directive/Care Planning Background questions: • As a result of the passage of health reform, there has been a political controversies surrounding the language, messaging regarding advance care planning, and end-of-life care decisions. • The Institute of Medicine (IOM) published a report in September 2014, that reassessed the status of end-of-life care in America • The IOM report recommended for policies and strategies to support care delivery that • is high-quality, person-centered, and financially sustainable. • The Personalize Your Care Act was purposed through legislature that offered Medicare and Medicaid coverage for voluntary advanced care planning to be done once every five years • In a study report done in January 2014, it…

    • 470 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Great Essays

    Ethical principles are not laws, but guiding principles about what is good and what is bad, that should direct doctors and other health care professionals in their work and decision making. Issues arising over end-of-life care involving decisions that affect the nature and timing of an individual's death raise difficult ethical conflicts for all concerned and can be a source of discord between health professionals within a team, health professionals and family members, or between different family members. Ethical dilemmas arise when there is a perceived conflicting duty to the patient, such as a conflict between a duty to preserve life and a duty to act in a patient's best interests, or when an ethical principle such as respect for autonomy conflicts with a duty not to…

    • 3174 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Medical Interventions

    • 92 Words
    • 1 Pages

    Before examining hospital policies, state death laws, and the uses of ethics committees; it is important to understand the public misconceptions about death, why medical interventions are discontinued, and the demands that families place on doctors. Although there is public awareness of the two types of death: brain and cardiopulmonary, the reasons for stopping medical interventions or life supports are not common knowledge. Additionally, the inaccurate portrayals of medical intervention and death in the media exacerbate the misunderstandings between caretakers and physicians due to families obtaining their medical knowledge from erroneous sources.…

    • 92 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Great Essays

    Nurses are faced with many ethical and moral issues on day by day basis. Moral, ethical, and legal issues are common in the work environment and vary from patient to patient. As a nurse leader, one must be able to take leadership responsibility to address the ethical issues that nurses face. Determining the framework to assist nursing in dealing with ethical issues is important. It is important to remember that ethical frameworks are intended to help leaders solve ethical dilemmas by clarifying personal values and beliefs (Marquis & Huston, 2015).…

    • 1266 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Constructive Argument Generally the thoughts of death are taboo and death is seen as a terrible part of life. Most people fear death as it brings an uncertainty—both for what is to come after life and for how death will occur. An individual who has a terminal illness faces the questions surrounding death as doctors state that this person does not have long to live. While this person suffers through an immense amount of physical and psychological pain, doctors are required to keep the individual alive.…

    • 1593 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    As nurses, we sometimes get ourselves in situations whether or not to respect the client’s wishes when they are against the medical orders for care. In Burkhardt and Nathaniel (2014), ethical dilemmas are when there are conflicting morals happening with a patient. To help guide the nurses, ethical dilemmas require them to think critically about situations and figure out the appropriate decision to create the best outcome for their patient and patient’s family. According to Murray (2010), nurses require moral courage, which requires to them to stand up for what they believe in when it comes to providing the safest and ethically care for a patient. No matter how a situation conflicts with an ethical aspect, being able to speak up for the patient and knowing their best interest makes for better nurses.…

    • 1008 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    We all die. It’s an inevitable truth that we all face. Although we don’t know when death will catch up to us, we know that it’s one of the few things that you can count on in the world. Recently, there has a been a strong focus on helping individuals prepare for death and assist them in dying well. It’s counter-intuitive, to think about death as we are often told to embrace life, but since the dying process is the last chance you have to embrace life, preparing for it will hopefully enable you a deeper sense of satisfaction and provide closure.…

    • 1030 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Reflection Of Extremis

    • 916 Words
    • 4 Pages

    This learning opportunity reflection was on based on choose your own adventure category. In this learning opportunity I reviewed a documentary titled “Extremis” on Netflix. This documentary took a close look at patients in the ICU and the decisions surrounding their care when their prognosis is not good. In total I spent about two hours completing my learning opportunity and the reflection assignment. I chose to review this film because the description looked interesting.…

    • 916 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays